Vincent, part two

Ok, so I am working my way through http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/ and reading each of the letters in the exhibit. I left off in January of 1878, so here I go again, posting good quotes from the next section of my reading :)

Is not life given us to become richer in spirit, even though the outward appearance may suffer?...I would feel more attraction for, and would rather come into contact with, one who was ugly or old or poor or in some way unhappy, but who, through experience and sorrow, had gained a mind and a soul. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam, 9 January 1878

It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few and leave a good example for those who come after. A work that is good may not last forever, but the thought expressed by it will, and the work itself will surely survive for a very long time, and those who come later can do no more than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and copy their example.- Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam, 3 March 1878

I like all of this next letter. He talks about struggles and melancholy and the importance of working through those challenges, of striving. Then, he says this - It is good to love as many things as one can, for therein lies true strength, and those who loves much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well...Love is the best and the noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and is sure of himself, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger...The need is for nothing less than the infinite and the miraculous, and a man does well to be satisfied with nothing less, and not to feel easy until he has gained it...So let us go forward quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light, `sursum corda' [lift up your hearts], and in the knowledge that we are as others are and that others are as we are and that it is right to love one another in the best possible way, believing all things, hoping for all things and enduring all things, and never failing. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam, 3 April 1878

I had to resist pasting almost the entire letter. In his letter the next month, he could be talking about today.

At times it is good to see such simple things when one sees so many people who for different reasons have strayed from all that is natural and so have lost their real and inner life, and when one also sees so many who live in misery and horror - for in the evening and at night one sees all kinds of black figures wandering about, men as well as women, in whom the terror of the night is personified, and whose misery one must class among the things that have no name in any language. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam, May 1878

There are some places here, thank God one finds them everywhere, where one feels more at home than anywhere else, where one gets a peculiar pristine feeling like that of homesickness, in which bitter melancholy plays some part; but yet its stimulation strengthens and cheers the mind, and gives us, we do not know how or why, new strength and ardour for our work...How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone.- Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Laeken, 15 November 1878

Tonight's sitting only got me through 1878. His emotional struggles seem to be getting the better of him. He desperately wants to preach, but cannot cope with the studying required to get a theological position. It leads him increasingly into depression, and his parents are deeply concerned for his well-being. They try to help, but he doesn't always take it.

More next time, when I go into 1879.